Starting to see more systems with Xfce 4.8 and KDE 4.6.3

Xfce and KDE are the two desktop environments that I most commonly use, so it is nice when I see distributions that update these environments and keep them close to the most currently available software. In the case of Xfce, Version 4.8 was released near the end of January, so any distribution that offers Xfce really ought to have Version 4.8 available, and the good news is that most of the distributions that I use are now offering Version 4.8, and most of them have the patches that have been added to Xfce 4.8, and some packages are labelled as high as 4.8.3.

Similarly, KDE 4.6 has been available at least three months now, but not all distributions are keeping up with it, because it does require a large commitment to build the large number of packages contained in the complete KDE Software Collection (SC). There are, however, a number of distributions that are, for the most part, keeping up with KDE. Some of them include Kubuntu 11.04, Sabayon 5.5, PCLinuxOS, Mageia 1 Beta 2, and openSUSE 11.4 "Tumbleweed" rolling release.

As I write this note, I am using Linux Mint Xfce 201104, which is a rolling release based on Debian Testing. On my Debian Sid system, I have had Xfce 4.8 with updates for several weeks now, and as I ran the updates to this rolling release today, I found that the latest Xfce changes have now been promoted from Sid to Testing (Wheezy), so that is good news for Debian based systems.